Page 47 of Pressure Head
“Of course you may. Would you like me to get it now?” She looked delighted.
Lionel, on the other hand, wasn’t a happy bunny. His bushy eyebrows lowered like storm clouds over eyes that were getting ready to shoot out lightning bolts. “Darling, I really—”
“Nah, that’s okay.” I didn’t want to cause any domestics. I dug in my pocket for a card. “All my contact info’s on that. Don’t want to make your hubby late for his appointment.”
I pressed the card into her cool little hand, and we left.
“Bloody hell,” Phil muttered out of the side of his mouth as we crunched back to the car. “Did you see Treadgood’s face when you were chatting up his wife? Enjoy living dangerously, do you?”
“I wasn’t chatting her up! But I’ll tell you what, if I was straight . . .” I sighed. “She’d still be way out of my league.”
“She’s just a woman,” Phil said, sounding amused.
“No, she’s a lady. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, and it’s made of paper and lives in a bank. Come on, Romeo, time to bugger off before the lord of the manor sets the dogs on us.”
“You know, class is nothing to do with money,” I told him as we strapped ourselves into the Golf.
“So what are you trying to say? We should all know our place and not get above ourselves, is that it?Can’t take the council estate out of the boy? Thanks a fucking bunch.” The gears complained as Phil put the car in reverse a bit too viciously.
“That’s not what I meant. I just meant . . . Patricia Treadgood’s a lady, that’s all.”
“Fine. I hope you’ll be very happy together.” We drove out onto the road to play hunt-the-pothole again. “Course, you might have to bump offhubbyfirst, but I’m sure she’ll forgive you for that. It’d be the classy thing to do.”
“You know, right now I’d like to do something really classy to your arse.”
There was an excruciating silence that lasted through several potholes. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t meant it to come outquitelike that.
“Listen,” I said quickly, trying to break the tension that was crackling through the air. “There’s something I ought to tell you.”
“Like what?” Phil sounded cautious, but then we were just getting to the worst bit of the road.
“It’s about the case. And the Rev. I went to see him again yesterday—I wanted another chance to search the place.” I paused. If I was waiting for a pat on the back, it was a good job I wasn’t holding my breath.
“You what? On your own? You twat!” Phil’s face darkened, its lines hard. “Have you forgotten this is a murder investigation? And the Rev’s a sodding suspect?”
“He didn’t do it,” I said earnestly. “I found what he was hiding, and it’s nothing to do with Melanie or her death.”
“And how the bloody hell do you know that? If you’ve got something to hide, you can be blackmailed about it. That’s how it works.”
I was shaking my head. “You didn’t see it. It was, well, it was a bit pathetic, really. Just a few really tame gay books and some old letters and pictures.”
“Who were the letters from?” Phil asked.
I shrugged. “Dunno. I didn’t read them. They were old. They obviously weren’t anything to do with Melanie.”
“Have you even been listening? People have been blackmailed over stuff that’s fifty years old.”
“You what? TheRevisn’t even fifty years old.”
“You know what I mean. Please tell me you at least looked at the photos to see if there was anyone in them we know.”
“Look, I’m sorry, all right? They weren’t rude or anything. It just didn’t seem relevant.”
“Nobody knows what’s relevant or not, at this stage. I can’t believe you didn’t look at them.”
“I don’t like prying, all right?”
